


teetering on the edge of a cliff

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, Jesse Manes is His Own Warning, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23605810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: Liz Ortecho wakes up to a situation she doesn't know well how to untie herself from.
Relationships: Max Evans/Liz Ortecho
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: Time After Time: A Roswell New Mexico Alternate Era AU Event, there will always be an us (in every world in every story)





	teetering on the edge of a cliff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Profitina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Profitina/gifts).



> Written for the [Time After Time Event](https://alterarnm.tumblr.com/) over a Tumblr, **Day 3: western**.
> 
> Prompt given by [alsoprofitina](https://alsoprofitina.tumblr.com/): **Cowboy Max (Max saving Liz tied up by Jesse Manes on the railroad tracks waiting for her to get ran over by a train)**
> 
> Title from a quote by Liz herself in S01E11 _Champagne Supernova_. Beta'ed by [mansikkaomenabanaani](https://mansikkaomenabanaani.tumblr.com/)

When she opens her eyes, the daylight burns her retinas and she has to close them briefly. She groans as she tries to move to her side, but she can’t move. She finds her hands and feet tied to something that feels cold and rigid underneath her body. “Fantastic,” she mutters under her breath, fighting the restraints and only managing to dig them deeper into her skin. “Fantastic,” she repeats as she stops wriggling. 

She opens her eyes again, allowing a bit of time for her pupils to adjust to the light before she takes in her surroundings. And when she does, her groans turn louder.

She’s tied up to the railroads in the middle of the desert, just outside town, the ropes marking her wrists and her ankles red with friction, making them itch whenever she moves. The knots are well-done and expertly executed, and while her memory is a bit fuzzy about the events that led to her current predicament, she knows there’s only one person who could have managed to kidnap her and place her so far away from civilization that she wouldn’t be found in time.

Jesse Manes.

She stops moving when she hears a loud noise coming from somewhere at her left. She would have thought she’s lying upside down, but she’s lost all ability to understand the details of her situation the moment she comprehended she was tied up to a railroad. The rails dig into her back, biting cold and strong into her flesh through the floral dress she’d been wearing the night before, merely minutes away from meeting the man she was supposed to marry in a few months — a seemingly decent, bland Mexican named Diego, because her father’s traditional mind wouldn’t allow him to even think outside the box and allow her to, for once, choose her partners. 

She can’t dwell on those kinds of thoughts right now, she realizes with rising panic, when she looks at her side and sees the silhouette of a train in the horizon. It is far away enough for it to not be a threat in normal conditions, but she’s tied to the railroad, unable to move and with no way to get out of her current predicament without any help — help that she can’t see coming either way. She’s all alone in the desert, the dust swirling in whirlwinds around her, disrupted in its peace by horse hooves and neighing.

“Neighing?” she murmurs to herself as she fights against the restraints. Everything screams _Jesse Manes_ to her, and she curses herself and her neverending need to find out truths in a place where lies are the only law men abide to. She berates herself not for having gone out of her path to uncovering what happened to her sister Rosa a few years back, but for having allowed Jesse Manes to discover her true intentions and effectively stopping her. She thinks of her father, who’s going to end up alone without his two daughters so many years after his wife died — first Helena, taken from them at such a horrible time because of a fever no one ever cured; and then Rosa, found by the stream just outside town with a burn to her chest and a blow to her head, covered in blood and surrounded by other two girls. Now, she thinks frantically, her father will never know what happened to her and he’ll be mourning the loss of his only daughter left with no headstone to worship.

The neighing sounds louder now, as though a horse has come closer, but she can’t trust her ears. The train is currently approaching as fast as trains go these days — slow enough to stop by important places, quick enough to rush past ghost towns like Roswell. She knows she doesn’t stand a chance against the new technology spitting steam and rapidly rushing towards her. She’s helpless against the cold bars underneath her body. But the dust is swirling once again around her, and she can see a horse’s leg right in her field of vision, which confuses her to no end. Why would a horse show up out of the blue right beside her when she’s fighting for her life?

She’s pulling so hard at her ropes that she’s drawing blood, red flowing out of her as she desperately thrashes on top of the railroad.

“Stop moving!” she hears over the sound of the train. She closes her eyes briefly. She must be having hallucinations now, because she can’t be hearing a man’s voice in the middle of the desert, where no one’s ever expected. “Do you want to cause even more damage? Stop right now!”

She obeys, if only because of the shock that comes with the sight of a pair of boots that accompany the horse she’s seeing — from the looks of it, the animal has to be an amazing specimen, brown and white with a star right below one of the knees. The man mounting the horse kneels right next to her, a face she’s seen around Roswell filling all the space. 

Marshal Max Evans.

“Ma’am, I know this is scary, but if you stop moving I might be able to release you and help you _before_ the train reaches us.”

“I—I just—”

“Please let me help you,” he pleads, his dark eyes warm and caring as he crouches even further into her space, hovering over her to check on the knots. She holds herself still, not even breathing, her head turned to the side as though she could stop the train with solely her will to do so. The machine is fastly reaching them, and she can’t help the whine that escapes her lips when Max Evans tugs at a knot and digs it deeper into her skin instead of loosening it. “Sorry, sorry! I’m trying my best here!”

“Don’t just _try_!” she snaps. She makes a face at her own words, aware that she shouldn’t be yelling at the only man who’s showed up to help her — and she will think about why he’s here and how he’s found out about her problems, but right now she should shut her mouth up and let him work. “Sorry,” she whispers, her voice waving as she tries to reign in her nerves. “I just don’t want to be run over by a train. It has to be worse than being stomped over by a horse carriage.”

He chuckles at her poor attempt at a joke but settles back into work while she tries to remain completely unmoving. She goes back into her memories, remembering how she stumbled upon a clue about the night Rosa died, words spoken by the town’s official drunk Michael Guerin — how she had been seen getting out of the Manes’ household with a chandelier in hand, laughing it off as a prank, before the fearsome Jesse Manes rushed out of the building and grabbed her by the arm. The chandelier fell to the ground, a hand slapped across Rosa’s face, and then the dust was lifted by a strong pair of arms dragging Rosa inside, where Guerin swore he could hear other girls’ voices. No one ever believed him when he claimed he knew what had happened to Rosa Ortecho and her two friends — the town decided she’d suffered from the same mental illness that had taken away her mother’s life, and she’d gone on a spiral taking with her Kate Long and Jasmine Frederick. 

A tear escapes her eye as she tries to push those memories back, the vision of her sister sprawled on the ground for everyone to see, forgotten and vilified as the other two girls were buried in Christian soil.

She feels the ropes giving, and suddenly she can move her hands. Free of her restraints, even if just briefly, she tries to sit up. The train is still approaching, fast and furious like a horse stampede. They need to get out _now_.

“These are a bit trickier,” he mutters under his breath. She is growing impatient, fueled by the need to get out of here before the train smashes them against the tracks like they’re nothing. “I can’t seem to—”

“Don’t you have a knife?” she asks, cutting him off as she tugs at the knots, swatting his hands out. “We need to cut through the rope!”

“I could hurt you,” he tries, but she gives him a look that she hopes speaks volumes about how she doesn’t mind getting out of this situation with a few cuts if that means she will get out _alive_. “I don’t want to be the one responsible—”

“Cut through them,” she orders. She’s one second away from searching for his knife, but she knows that even in this dire situation that wouldn’t be a wise move. She doesn’t want to be the woman who felt Marshal Max Evans up for a knife, even if that means she freed herself. “Do it now!”

He shuts his mouth and gets to work, picking a knife out of his belt and finally cutting the ropes by her ankles. She feels the prickle of the blade against her skin, she knows she’ll have cuts and scars left afterwards, and all she can think is that maybe these imperfections will make Diego stop his quest to marry her when she doesn’t want to be tied to any man right now — or ever. She represses a chuckle at her own choice of words — being literally tied up at a railroad track while thinking about being tied to a man. He pushes her to her side, and she rolls off the tracks, dust getting in her floral dress as she leaves the danger behind. He follows suit, the horse neighing again while they manage to get shelter a few feet away from the tracks.

The train rushes past them, steam filling the air as it rolls by them. She coughs, marveling at the fact that she’s been saved in a last-minute move from the pawns of imminent death. And she knows that she hasn’t been properly introduced to Marshal Max Evans — surely, she has seen him around town, puffing out his chest with that star he earned under Sheriff Valenti’s orders; she’s seen him at some social events such as Isobel Evans’ coming of age party. They’ve never talked, not even crossed paths at her father’s convenience store once, but she feels she’s known him her whole life.

She feels like she’s had those dark eyes on her, following her every movement, protecting her from harm, for a long time. Maybe longer than she’s willing to admit.

“Thank you for your assistance, sir, but I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” she says, dusting off her flowery dress and bowing slightly. He chuckles and lifts off his hat.

“Marshal Max Evans, at your service,” he says lightly, a hint of laughter in his words. “Please call me Max.”

“Elizabeth Ortecho, but you may call me Liz.”

“Pleasure to _finally_ meet you, Liz,” he whispers, leaning in closer until he’s a breath away from her lips.

“Pleasure is mine, Max,” she murmurs, more of a reflex as she closes her eyes and allows him to close the space between them, giving in to the gravity pull pushing them together.


End file.
